What a long strange trip it has been for Carl Ruggiero. The Revere Police Department lieutenant retired after 30 years on the job in a department that has had its share of controversy and colorful characters over the years.
Most of the drama revolved around a succession of Revere police chiefs. In 1986, a year before Ruggiero joined the department, two department members battled with former Chief Jake DeLeire over disability retirements claiming DeLeire wielded sufficient “clout” to keep them from wanting to go “head to head” with their boss.
And then there is “Blinky” Moscato. In 1995, a year after Ruggiero was promoted to sergeant, former Mayor Robert Haas fired then-Patrolman Steven Moscato with city officials claiming Moscato did not report a rear-end automobile collision and once sent firefighters to the wrong address of a house fire.
Moscato countered the claims by producing a commendation letter from former Revere mayor, the late George V. Colella. Wrong address or not, a state board cleared Moscato to rejoin the department in 1996.
Moscato’s problems paled in comparison in 1995 to the high-profile federal drug ring bust that found a department member accused of employing four drug dealers as part of an enterprise with ties to Colombia and Greece.
James Russo was police chief at the time of the scandal and relations between Russo and Haas, who didn’t relish putting out fires in the police department, soured over the next two years.
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By 1997, City Council members were asking Haas to, in turn, ask federal officials to do a top-to-bottom review of police department operations. Ruggiero and fellow officers found themselves working in a department split into three factions with employee morale, according to one councilor, at “rock bottom.”
Another councilor went as far as to suggest Russo wasn’t running the department and “People of lesser rank (are) calling the shots.”
The controversy did not completely overshadow opportunities to highlight department accomplishments and bravery demonstrated by officers. When a knife-wielding woman threatened to kill her family and herself, officers converged on Hichborn Street and Shirley Avenue and managed to capture the woman with the help of former Fire Chief Dan Doherty. No one was hurt and the incident’s safe ending represented an opportunity for department-wide pride.
Russo’s 1999 retirement left department leadership in limbo until 2002 when former Chief Terence Reardon took command and ushered in a prolonged period of stability marked by tragedy. Officer Daniel Talbot’s murder near Revere High School in 2007 stunned the department and Revere.
Officers were still mourning Talbot in 2009 when Officers Joseph Singer and Kenneth Bruker jumped into the cold water off Rocky Beach and rescued three children.
Through all the department’s highs and lows, changes in chiefs and a move to a new police station, Carl Ruggiero has moved up the ranks and become a department leader in a city, in the words of its mayor, “built on pride.”